Omar Bahrain Unin
SIBU (July 16): The Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) Sarawak wants the government to consider taking only those who have been fully vaccinated to work at vaccination centres (PPVs).
Its chairman Omar Bahrein Unin also wants all PPV workers to be provided with proper and adequate personal protective equipment (PPE).
“Cuepacs is worried that staff at PPVs are infected by Covid-19, just like in the case of the PPV at Ideal Convention Centre (IDCC) in Shah Alam.
“Such was the first case involving a PPV which had forced the centre to be closed after 204 positive cases were detected among its workers.
“The impact of what had happened to the workers should be viewed from various aspects to prevent recurrence of such incidents in other PPVs,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Omar said that the authorities concerned should investigate or find out the source and how the infection spread among the workers.
PPV workers are highly vulnerable to Covid-19 due to their role and duty at the centres, he added.
“Vaccine recipients at the PPV come from various places with unknown health status.
“As they come and go, anyone can be the carrier of the virus,” he pointed out.
“Most of PPV workers are civil servants and they can be considered as frontliners because they help in the government efforts to fight Covid-19 by providing vaccination to the people,” he said.
He also hoped other PPVs will continue to observe standard operating procedures (SOPs) strictly without compromising safety and health of their workers.
“The safety and health of employees must be protected in accordance with Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (Act 514),” he stressed.
Meanwhile, National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that the PPV at IDCC Shah Alam was closed for a day on Tuesday after 204 Covid-19 positive cases were detected among its workers.
The closure to allow sanitation work by the Fire and Rescue Department had caused a total of 6,000 appointments to be rescheduled.
Khairy also said the cases were detected after all the 453 workers at the PPV underwent a mass Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) screening test on July 10 and the results of the screening test also showed that the positive cases had a cycle threshold value of more than 35, which is low viral load.